AFSA01 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Animism, Meritocracy, Chukwu
Document Summary
He has to write the first african novel right, and do justice to the way people themselves would tell stories. Pg 96 characteristics of oral story-telling culture: short, concrete imagery, action-filled, at the centre there is conflict, repetitive and memoric. This is a trickster story, there is pleasure in the story. Famine and feasting are a big part of the umofia area, so the story is based on things that people know. Lots of dialogue, characters are types (the coward, the strong) Characters are types okonko is the strong man who is afraid of being weak. His style echoes oral story telling: he is writing about people who don"t have novels or literacy to do justice. There is repetition in his writing (okonkwo"s son nwoye, tortoise the cunning, etc. ) You are the stories that people tell about you. Okonkwo is clearly the one who beat the cat in wrestling.
